


Balance

by eyra



Series: Heat [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Angst, Bathing/Washing, Chronic Illness, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, Illness - not specified, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-30
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-12-21 21:13:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11952744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyra/pseuds/eyra
Summary: Some days are good. Some days Remus takes it all in his stride, laughing and joking and making a farce of the whole thing, letting Sirius fuss over him and seeming to almost revel in it. Sirius allows him the capriciousness, knowing that were the circumstances reversed, likely every day would be a bad day for him, and he’s never not in awe of Remus on the good days.





	Balance

**Author's Note:**

> This won't make a huge amount of sense if you haven't read "Heat" - so scoot off and read that first then come back for this one.

“Well that was shit.”

John huffs out a quiet laugh, picking the remote from the arm of his chair and tossing it into Sirius’s lap.

“Seriously!” Sirius exclaims, eyebrows raised, as he retrieves the control and starts flicking through the limited channels on John and Remus’s Freeview box. “That was properly shit. It made fuck all sense.”

Remus rolls his eyes with a small smile.

“If you’d read the book like I told you to, you would’ve got it.”

“Fuck that.”

Of all the things Sirius likes about being round at Remus’s house, the open swearing policy ranks pretty highly. John Lupin might not have the genial warmth of Mr. Potter or the culinary flair of Pete’s parents, but he pays absolutely no mind to Sirius swearing til he’s blue in the face, and Sirius rates him for that. Then there’s the other thing about him not caring one way or another if Sirius takes up residence at the Lupin house for a weekend to fuck his son senseless. “As long as I’m out of the house,” he’d muttered gruffly the first time he’d caught Sirius with his hand down Remus’s sweatpants in front of The Antiques Roadshow one Sunday night, Remus’s blush refusing to fade until John must’ve been at least two pints gone at the pub three streets across. He’s a man of few words, but Sirius gets the impression that John quite likes having him around, especially in the past twelve months. A problem shared, and all that.

Not that Remus is a problem, Sirius is always quick to remind himself. He just _has_ problems. Like right now, the way his brow furrows just slightly as he blinks at the flickering television screen tells Sirius that something’s aching. Last summer, Sirius would’ve guessed the tender spot behind his right knee. It always seemed to be that spot in the beginning. Now, it’s probably everything south of his shoulders. His lower back will be killing him after his appointment this morning, and he’s holding his legs so carefully on the footrest of the reclining chair that Sirius knows his hips are playing up again.

“That top coat wants finishing,” John murmurs, standing slowly from his chair and running a weathered, paint-stained hand through his greying hair as he glances out of the front window at the fresh coat of emulsion on the garage door, glinting in the orange light of the late summer evening.

“Ok,” Remus answers lightly, his eyes still fixed on the television and his voice with only a slight edge to it. Sirius doubts James or Peter would’ve noticed.

John doesn’t catch Sirius’s eye as he leaves the room, or ask them if they need anything. They’ve been doing this for over a year now and the routine ticks over like clockwork, month after month, none of them ever really talking about it but all of them comfortable enough to play their part with minimal awkwardness, fear and argument, unlike last summer when it had been new and scary and everything left unsaid had hung around the small house like a disease in itself.

“Load of bollocks,” Sirius mutters, flicking the TV off and tossing the remote back into John’s empty chair beside him. He rolls his head to the side to look dolefully at Remus. “Wanna blow me instead?”

Remus’s answering grin and the cushion that hits him right in the face pull a chuckle from Sirius, his laughter still coming as he stands and stretches his arms above his head, yawning, the hem of his old t-shirt riding up to reveal his flat, pale stomach. He sees Remus’s eyes flicker down to the band of exposed skin, and his smile grows.

“Come on, you perv,” he laughs, nudging Remus’s crutches closer to his recliner with his foot before wandering out to the hallway and the bottom of the steps. He knows Remus will follow in his own time, and they may be immeasurably more comfortable with the whole situation than they were in the beginning but Sirius is desperate to let Remus retain what little dignity he hasn’t yet been forced to sacrifice to this thing, and that means turning the other way when Remus is awkwardly pushing himself up from his chair and getting himself sorted on his twin crutches. Remus doesn’t need anyone watching that.

“Go on then,” Remus mutters as he rounds the corner, his smile from before lingering and the familiar _click, click, click_ of his crutches muffled by the thin carpet in the corridor, and this is the one constant point of contention in the whole process. Who goes up the bloody stairs first. Remus always tries to laugh it off; says Sirius just wants to look at his arse, which Sirius counters with a mock gasp and a “Would I _ever_?”. Remus had put across a fairly valid point the week before last, arguing that the distribution of weight such as it was when he was hoisting himself up the stairs on his crutches actually meant that were he to fall, he’d probably pitch forwards rather than backwards, and end up with his face in Sirius’s behind, and Sirius had agreed that that didn’t sound too bad. Certainly preferable to Remus falling backwards and cracking his head open on the bottom step like he sometimes does in the dreams Sirius has when Remus is in the hospital and he’s alone in his bed at James’s house.

The bath is already two inches deep by the time Remus limps through the door, a fine sheen of sweat on his forehead as he lowers himself onto the toilet seat lid and props his crutches against the wall with unsteady hands. He leans his head there too, breaching the narrow gap between the toilet and the tiles to rest his cheek against the cool ceramic, his chest heaving with the exertion of the climb. Sirius watches him for a moment, his expression softer than he’d ever allow in front of the others. He leaves the taps running and shuffles across the cracked tiles on his knees to settle in front of Remus, looking up at him with gentle eyes as he reaches up and lays warm hands on jersey-clad thighs, massaging lightly.

Remus’s eyes crack open, his mouth twisting upwards at the familiar sight despite his laboured breathing. They hold eye contact in content silence for a few moments, the only sounds the rushing of the faucet behind Sirius and the quiet rubbing of his hands on Remus’s legs, his deft fingers gently working the taut muscles there.

“Long day,” Remus mutters, the fingertips of his right hand trailing lightly up and down Sirius’s forearm, up and down and up and down to leave a slight, pleasing trail of goosepimples in their wake.

Sirius nods.

“Long day.”

At length, Sirius’s hands slow their work and he pushes himself up to add a scoop of salts to the filling bath. It’s some natural shit that Pete’s mother in all her homespun wisdom conjured up using ingredients from some hippie market or other, and Sirius had had to agree with John when he’d wrinkled his nose and muttered that they smelled like old porridge. They seem to soothe Remus though, so Sirius pours a generous measure under the running tap and dips his hand below the surface to check the temperature.

“Not too hot,” comes Remus’s soft voice from over his shoulder, still leaning heavily against the wall as he starts peeling off his t-shirt. “It’ll set me off if it’s too hot.”

“It’s alright,” Sirius replies lightly, turning the tap off. “Not too hot.”

Wiping his hand dry on his own jeans, Sirius moves back on his knees to settle in front of Remus again, who is plucking awkwardly at the waistband of his sweatpants and using the still-new plastic handrail to his left to lift his hips a few inches off the toilet seat. It’s enough for Sirius to tug the sweatpants down his thighs, Remus’s boxer shorts following, and then he folds everything haphazardly on the tiled floor before standing and leaning down to take hold of Remus firmly under each arm. They work in perfect sync now, Remus pushing himself up to a tentative half-stand, one hand on Sirius’s shoulder and the other still on the bar next to the toilet. No words pass between them as Sirius drapes one of Remus’s arms around his neck and helps him limp across to the tub, supporting him as he sits carefully on the bath edge then bending down to lift first one, then both legs over the side. Remus closes his eyes as he lowers himself into the warm, soapy water, his hand finding Sirius’s to give a quick squeeze of appreciation.

“Thanks, love,” he murmurs, his eyes still resting as the water laps at his aching muscles.

“No, thank _you_ ,” Sirius mutters in return, frowning as he kneels beside the bath and takes his own bicep in hand, flexing his arm experimentally. “Got guns these days.”

He’s only half joking – since things started to get bad in the spring, and since Remus started to struggle to lift himself into the bath or out of bed or off the toilet, Sirius has been building strength by necessity and if he sometimes borrows James’s gym membership card to get a bit of extra practice in and help things along… well, Remus doesn’t need to know that. Sirius is happy to do it.

“Idiot,” Remus grins, flicking bathwater in Sirius’s direction and laughing as it hits him square in the face.

Sirius cries out in mock outrage.

“Oh, you want to start something?”

It only takes a few seconds for Sirius’s t-shirt to get fully drenched, and a few seconds more for a large puddle to have formed on the floor around him. Even the mirror above the sink is painted with streaks of bathwater by the time they’re done, the droplets trickling down the steamed-up glass and splashing onto the ceramic below.

“Stop messing about,” Sirius admonishes sternly, pushing his dripping hair back as he tries and fails to keep a straight face, which only causes Remus to laugh more. “You’re distracting me.”

Another peal of laughter rings out from Remus as Sirius reaches for the flannel draped over the rim of the bath, dipping it into the water before bringing it in front of Remus’s face, his mock seriousness enduring even as he struggles to fight back a smile.

“Now, are you going to let me wash you or are you going to keep misbehaving?”

Remus smirks as he leans his head back against the side of the tub.

“Oh yes, wash me Sir,” he gasps, his eyes slipping closed. “I’m _sooo_ dirty.”

“Tit,” Sirius mutters through his answering grin, bringing the washcloth up to Remus’s chest. In truth, it’s not something Remus couldn’t do himself, but if he’s going to allow it today then Sirius won’t hesitate to oblige. On some days – bad days – Remus will shut down as soon as he’s in the water, snatching up the flannel even if his hands are shaking and somehow dismissing Sirius without saying a word, to wait outside on the landing. Wait for Remus to murmur through the door that he’s finished. Wait for Remus to be stupid enough to try and clamber out unaided, and Sirius will burst in, his heart in his mouth, and ignore Remus’s protests and quick, cruel words as he quietly guides him and dries him off and stops him from slipping and cracking his stupid head open.

But some days are good now. Some days Remus takes it all in his stride, laughing and joking and making a farce of the whole thing, letting Sirius fuss over him and seeming to almost revel in it in a way he never would’ve done a year ago. Sirius allows him the capriciousness, knowing that were the circumstances reversed, likely every day would be a bad day for him, and he’s never not in awe of Remus on the good days. Especially today – it’d been a 6am start for all of them to get Remus up and showered and dressed and across town to St. James’s Hospital for his 8:30am appointment, and forty-five minutes in the waiting room of Remus nervously chewing his thumbnail and John reading his paper and Sirius perched on the edge of the uncomfortable plastic chair, his knee bouncing up and down and _“what the fuck is taking them so fucking long?”_

Twenty-seven minutes of a stand-in doctor with precisely zero bedside manner pushing needles into Remus’s lower back had felt like a lifetime in a morning for Sirius, Remus’s jaw a tense line as he clenched his teeth together to breathe measuredly through his nose and Sirius’s own desperate plea of _“Can you just be a bit more fucking careful with him, please?”_ had almost been enough to get him banished to the hallway, to wait with John and the near-permanent frown Remus’s dad wears these days when he thinks his son isn’t looking.

John had hit a pothole ten minutes from their house on the way back and that was enough for Remus to retch and lose his breakfast all over Sirius’s lap in the backseat, and it was another hour before the two of them, moving at a glacial pace, had climbed the stairs, washed up, and fallen back into the new double bed in Remus’s room.

And if Remus can laugh and joke after a day like that… kid deserves a fucking medal, in Sirius’s eyes.

Sirius guides the flannel from one shoulder to another, squeezing occasionally to release rivulets of warm water that wash down pale, freckled skin; a peaceful, happy smile idling on Remus’s lips. Wetting the cloth again, Sirius presses it to Remus’s collarbone, to his gently rising and falling chest, and when he brings it below the surface to run along Remus’s flat stomach he’s rewarded with a slow, marked intake of breath.

He glances up, and the familiar look in Remus’s eyes guides Sirius’s hand lower, the flannel pressing against Remus through the warm water as he parts his legs as far as the narrow tub will allow. Ever so slowly, and with a pressure that builds unhurriedly, Sirius begins to rub, leaning over to capture Remus’s water-flecked lips in a languid kiss that draws a soft moan from the other boy as he opens to let Sirius’s tongue inside.

“You like that?” Sirius whispers, matching Remus breath for heightened breath as his palm curls around his warm cock, the flannel drifting away under the water, forgotten. Slowly, he pumps him with deliberate strokes, his teeth catching Remus’s bottom lip to pull another quiet sigh from the other boy and an answering heat begins to pool in his own lap.

He ignores it as best he can. His eyes are fixed on Remus – on the way his legs strain to open wider, pushing weakly against the ceramic as he breaks their kiss to lean his head back against the tub, eyes closed and breath coming now in shorter, laboured pants. He watches an errant drop of water meander down Remus’s neck, coming to rest in the hollow above his collarbone and Sirius leans in to lick it off the pale skin there, pulling another short gasp from Remus.

“Come on babe,” he murmurs encouragingly, laying a trail of wet, open kisses back up Remus’s neck. The hand between Remus’s legs becomes a little firmer, massaging him deeply to stir his still mostly-soft length, and Sirius glances up to check the lines of concentration marring his damp forehead. Determined, he goes back to sucking gently at the spot just below Remus’s jaw, the spot that always helps Remus along to full hardness, and his hand in the cooling water dips a little lower to cup Remus’s balls, rolling them between his wet fingers.

Sirius doesn’t miss the furrow in Remus’s brow deepening, or the way his hands are balled into fists at his sides beneath the water, or how his arousal is still only barely noticeable in the circle of Sirius’s fingers, despite his ministrations.

“I’ve got you babe,” he whispers, his forehead resting against Remus’s, his hand working a little quicker over Remus's softening cock, wrist twisting cleverly. “Come on, I’ve got you.”

His answer, at length, is a frustrated, broken sob, and his eyes snap open immediately only for his heart to break into a thousand pieces at the sight. Remus brings a shaking hand up to cover his face, his mouth downturned as he takes deep, measured breaths through his nose. His other hand joins the first, his head shaking minutely and it’s all Sirius can do not to scream in frustration that this stupid _fucking_ disease won’t let Remus go, not even for a moment. Not even for this, to let Remus have five fucking minutes to get off after a horrible day in a horrible month in a horrible fucking year.

He swallows hard as he brings his hands up to rest gently around Remus’s wrists, leaning in to press a soft, lingering kiss into his damp hair.

“Hey,” he whispers, pulling Remus’s palms gently away from his tear-stained face and now he doesn’t miss how Remus won’t look directly at him. He ducks his head a little to try catch his gaze, drawing Remus’s shaking hands into his own.

“It’s ok, babe.”

Remus shakes his head again.

“It is,” Sirius persists, leaning in to press a kiss to Remus’s cheek, and another, and another and then he’s bringing one hand up to tilt Remus’s chin towards him and capturing his trembling lips in something that he desperately hopes conveys his absolute fucking _adoration_ of this man and _of course it’s ok, darling, and I know you’re fucking terrified and I’m scared too but don’t you for a **second** feel embarrassed about this because this is **not** your fucking fault._

“It’s _ok_.”

The whispered, broken apology that comes next is as expected as it is heart-rending, and Sirius can only shush him gently and kiss him again and if he opens his mouth to try and speak right now his voice will break and he’ll lose it and Remus doesn’t need that from him, not ever. So he stays quiet, wordless as he quickly pulls off his jeans, tosses his still-damp t-shirt onto the tiled floor. He climbs carefully into the bath, the water barely lukewarm now as he settles in front of Remus and pulls him close, a hand carding through his damp curls before the whole wretched day pours out and Remus lets go completely in the safety of Sirius’s arms.

 

* * *

 

When the last gleam of orange sun has slipped over the tops of the houses across the road, John puts down his paintbrush. And when he passes Remus’s room on his weary way to bed half an hour later, picking drying white paint from his calloused hands, he sees through the door ajar his son sleeping peacefully with his head resting in Sirius’s lap, the boy’s pale fingers gently running through Remus’s sandy hair by the muted light of the streetlamp glowing behind the blinds. And when he pauses on the landing – just for a moment – and hears a soft, slow song; a whispered, off-key lullaby of indiscernible promises, John feels the familiar painful furrow in his brow diminish at last and slip away to a small, grateful smile.


End file.
